Friday night we had decided to find a Methodist church for Sunday worship. It was time for a return to our faith roots. He had done the research. We needed to be up by 8. Methodist churches in London aren’t nearly as plentiful as Anglican churches.

Sunday morning, we had our route plotted. We would have a 25 minute walk after we left the above ground and tube, probably an hour of travel altogether. Tom had figured it out very well. Church was at 10:30. We arrived at 10:31 thinking we would be late. We hadn’t figured in the fact that this was a black congregation predominantly from Africa. They were devoted to God not to time. The congregation of about sixty people, with about 15 youth, is warm, and friendly. They totally understood hospitality. The service started about 10:45 and went to 1:00 p.m. The time flew by. We had lots of lively singing. I particularly enjoyed their offering tradition. When it was time, the lovely woman beside me whispered, we will be dancing our offering to the front. That is exactly what we did. Everyone stood, we sang and sort of danced around the church, filing past the offering plate on the communion table and back to our seats. St. Paul says, “God loves a cheerful giver. We certainly felt as if this ritual helped us to be “cheerful givers”. The whole service was fun. The emphasis was on relationships – our relationship with God and with each other. They had a birthday chair. Each person celebrating sat in the chair and enjoyed his/her own rendition of Happy Birthday. God’s angels filled this church.

After church we walked to Greenwich Gardens. This lively market was fun. We bought a few gifts to bring home. We talked with lots of friendly people. We had lunch.

After lunch we toured the “Cutty Sark”, a famous sailing ship that carried tea to England and around the world. Once again we followed an audio tour. Sunday was a perfect day, a wonderful way to end our journey.

We returned to Sara’s. I made us scrambled eggs etc. We ate and talked with Sara. About ten o’clock, she said, “I feel a bit puckish. We did too. So she baked us a pizza and garlic bread. We added cheese from our stash in the fridge. We had a little party. We crawled gratefully into bed about 11:30. Everything was packed. The alarm set for 3:00 a.m. We were going home.

Jet-Lagged and Home

Hallelujah

I hope you enjoyed our trip. It was fun thinking about having you along and focusing on the angels of our journey. I would have included more pictures, but adding the pictures wasn’t as easy as I had hoped. There were some glitches transferring the pictures from my phone to my computer. Also many of the places didn’t allow pictures.

Tom and I had a great trip. We learned lots. We saw lots. We enjoyed each other and what we did. For me that is the purpose of a vacation. We are truly grateful this experience.